[GNC] rookie question Imbalance-USD

Gyle McCollam gmccollam at live.com
Sat Jun 18 14:57:01 EDT 2022


I agree that the matching step is critical when importing and the proper account should be assigned during import.  I also agree that the OP needs to understand Double Entry accounting better,  However, if he has "empty" transactions in the imbalance account, my bet is that if he clicks on the split icon in the toolbar, he will see his debit and credit accounts, plus the empty imbalance account.  When correcting the imbalance entry, he needs to open the split and click on the imbalance entry and change that to the proper account.  I think he added the proper account, entered the amount, then removed the amount from the imbalance account. Doing it this way you can't delete the imbalance account, unless you "jump" to one of the other accounts and delete it from there.  If he deletes the entry, he will delete it from the other accounts as well, which he doesn't want to do.
  You state that "Once all funds are re-allocated there should be no entries remaining and you can safely delete that account."  You don't delete the account, once there are no entries the account it is irrelevant and if you have it set to not display unused accounts you won't see it unless in the future there is another entry in there,


Thank You,
Gyle McCollam

Gyle McCollam

609.680.2326                     Mobile

gmccollam at live.com<mailto:gmccollam at gyleshomes.com>           email

________________________________
From: gnucash-user <gnucash-user-bounces+gylemc=gmail.com at gnucash.org> on behalf of David Carlson <david.carlson.417 at gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 18, 2022 1:59 PM
To: Kevin T <nevikintx at yahoo.com>
Cc: gnucash-user at gnucash.org <gnucash-user at gnucash.org>
Subject: Re: [GNC] rookie question Imbalance-USD

First, Imbalance-USD is not an expense account but a top level account, and
it is intended to be used only when an automated function is unable to form
a fully balanced transaction.  You are correct that you can look under that
account name to find unbalanced transactions if and when they exist.

You might find it useful to re-read about double entry bookkeeping in the
various help resources.  The F1 key should work while in GnuCash.

We never use the term "Category" to refer to anything in GnuCash, not even
"Expense" Accounts.

The fact that you are finding "empty" transactions there indicates that you
are not always deleting references to that account after re-allocating
funds to the desired account.  Once all funds are re-allocated there should
be no entries remaining and you can safely delete that account.  It will be
re-created if new transactions appear.

As you noticed, double-clicking is nearly useless in GnuCash.  It does work
to change the sort order of columns in some windows.

When using an import function, GnuCash is trying to learn what Account
transactions have been applied to in the past so it can try to use the same
account with similar transactions.  That is why it is important to use the
"Matching" step to correct account assignments before the import process is
closed.

Lastly, text files in Windows OS always use CR-LF, but other OS's mostly
use CR.  This creates confusion when viewing text files in other OS's.


On Sat, Jun 18, 2022 at 11:54 AM Kevin T via gnucash-user <
gnucash-user at gnucash.org> wrote:

> I have been populating my accounts with CSV.  During the import, the tool
> doesn't have any existing transactions to match, so most of them get
> assigned the expense category 'Imbalance-USD'.
> I am to the point of making sure that accounts are reconciled and
> transactions don't have left over or bad account assignments.  Since
> Imbalance is one of those expense categories I thought that would be a good
> place to make sure things are clean.
> I double click that expense category and the tab populates.Most of these
> entries have no value in either the deposit or withdrawal columns.Some
> do.Some even have a transfer account defined and values.
> Sooo..  the stupid questions..
> If they have a transfer account and values already specified, why is this
> transaction in this expense category?How do I find out from which account
> these transactions were originally created?  double clicking does
> nothing.If they contain no values, is it safe to delete them?
> I did import a number of times, trying figuring out the import behavior,
> into temp or no longer existing accounts.  Are these left over after
> deleting these accounts?
> version 4.1 windows.
> I have noticed that my original emails contain a ? for every CRLF that
> occurs, when the mailing list distributes this.  I am using yahoo mail to
> send this.   Is there a way to stop this ? mark 'feature'??
>
> Kevin
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